Apple Acquired Lala Music Service to Shut Down May 31st
Lala was a four year old startup company that offered customers streaming music over the Internet. This allowed users to listen to a catalog of over 7 million songs for free as a stream over the web -- much like internet radio. If you wanted to buy the right to listen to a particular song on demand an unlimited amount of times from the web, it would cost $.10. In order to permanently download the song to your hard drive or device, however, it would cost the more traditional $.79-$.89 per song.
Some had speculated that Apple would leverage the talent and technology to offer a similar "cloud-based" iTunes service. It was believed that Apple would introduce a version of iTunes that offered streaming music and possibly video services to users. Apple is presumably shutting down Lala to devote resources on its own plans.
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Thanks Steve!
Great job mate :)
Not...
Pretty sure they didn't acquire it to keep you happy mate!
May 31 is right before WWDC, could be a streaming music announcement at WWDC.
Just what I was thinking, seems perfect timing for a big announcement at WWDC.
May 31 is right before WWDC, could be a streaming music announcement at WWDC.
Just what I was thinking, seems perfect timing for a big announcement at WWDC.
Gotta be!
Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I want a physical copy of my music. My Ipod and CD player still work while server service is occurring. My Ipod still plays music when ATT DSL at work goes offline (yes they suck at wired and wireless where i live). Power outages dont stop my charged Ipod.
I am still trying to see how this works well overall for all parties. Americans love free. Why pay Apple for per song streaming when there will always be another option. Once Lala music goes down people with just wait for the next Lala and use Pandora or another service in the meantime.
Maybe I am a little old fashioned, but I want a physical copy of my music. My Ipod and CD player still work while server service is occurring. My Ipod still plays music when ATT DSL at work goes offline (yes they suck at wired and wireless where i live). Power outages dont stop my charged Ipod.
This is just me writing about an idea, no basis in truth (though I hope people can see where Im coming from)
Within iTunes is the option to use Apple Genius. This 'knows' all the songs within your iTunes library. Say if Apple could use this data so you can stream a copy of a song you own on iTunes from a centralised Apple server (a copy of each song is held by Apple). This removes the need for large capacity iPhones/ iPod Touches/ iPads. Just a thought, but would seem like a natural evolution.
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100427/welcome-back-steve-apple-ceo-jobs-will-appear-onstage-at-d8/
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